FF/Square Millenium Column

*note: the opinions expressed within this column are those of colin, and do not necessarily reflect those of interact. people like to call me pimp masta' flex, but you can call me colin. coarse language is bound to be present; blame it on the rain that was fallin'... fallin'*

so, here i am again, the official testtubebaby. i should probably tell you something about myself: i'm 18, male, journalism student, and i have never learned how to use the caps lock button! it's quite sad really, but i deal with it, hoping everyday, that i will become the next e.e. cummings, or at least be able to work for a magazine/website that will let me work without the confines for caps lock, but enough of my hang-ups. i have q&a experience, reviews experience, newspaper experience, yearbook experience, previews experience, and news experience, and i still end up writing videogame columns. anyways, here i am, and i am all yours...

of course, i have to talk about what we are all thinking about at the moment, and that is the square millennium conference. now, i have to tell you my opinion on the whole final fantasy issue: i am a big squaresoft fan, especially of the final fantasy's, and more specifically: final fantasy 7. to me, final fantasy 7 defines what a well made rpg should be: characters you can care about, epic story, thrilling soundtrack, and replayablility... not to mention the most important part of a great rpg experience: mini-games!

here's the new final fantasy(s) run down, and my take on them (like you even care!):

1. final fantasy 9: looks all right, especially for fans of the whole mid-evil setting (i like final fantasy 4; if 9 is like it, i will be happy); i was hoping for another sci-fi setting, but whatever. the characters are super deformed, so that makes me happy, and of course i give the 4-person party a big thumbs up. if it has a decent story to back it up, final fantasy 9 just might be live up to the hype/series title.

2. final fantasy 10: oh my god! have you ever seen anything this good? from the two screen shots i have personally seen of this game, i can attest that square has a strong grasp of ps2's graphical capabilities. forget about the crappie anti-alliasing of final fantasy 8, or the previous final fantasy's pre-rendered backgrounds; this game is all real time, and it looks beautiful. already, game critics and magazines are calling it "ps2's answer to shen mue".

3. final fantasy 11: this, folks, is where square unwinds themselves, and kills off the final fantasy series: instead of the games with epic shorelines, turn-based battles, and a band of motley characters, square has decided to make the eleventh final fantasy... prepare yourself... an online massive multiplayer srpg!!!!! this basically means, square has given up on story, the final fantasy style fighting, and multiple characters, to make an everquest clone! pretty soon square will have us selling our souls for months of online play!

other than the three new final fantasy's, square showed their, get this, new ps2 wrestling game, baseball game, and fighting game. now, these genre’s are all well and good, but they are far below what i (and rpg players everywhere) have come to expect from square. it is this columnist's opinion that the gaming public, specifically the rpg gaming public, boycott squaresoft until they figure out what we really want: rpgs.